


Storm King's Thunder: Mirabar

by valamerys



Series: Storm King's Thunder campaign fic [5]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: DOWNTIME BAYBEE, Gen, Golden stag cameo, Sparring, Theseus speaks to one (1) woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: Forty days in the city— Theseus and Marin learn things about themselves, Phyn has an encounter, and Rekhien gets his ass beat.
Series: Storm King's Thunder campaign fic [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659832





	Storm King's Thunder: Mirabar

**Author's Note:**

> After Theseus's harrowing death and resurrection, the party returned to Mirabar to confront the corruption in the city council that allowed Xantharl's keep to be overthrown. Having successfully freed the Marchion from the influence of an evil advisor, they've been invited to stay in the Hall of All Fires, and have taken the opportunity to rest, research, and gain a few new skills.

**I.**

  
  


Theseus finds the temple of Tyr on the north side of the city, a dignified structure of pale stone and perfect symmetry. Tall columns stand sentinel in the antechamber alongside reliefs and statues placed at careful intervals: scenes of the god’s trials, of his influence in battles and wars, of justice delivered, each ringed with carved lines of holy text. Candles gutter in uneven piles at the bases, slowly merging with the accumulated masses of melted wax left from decades of devotion. 

The flickering light gives the stone faces a ghoulish underglow, and Theseus wanders past them carefully. Some of the likenesses of Tyr are unnervingly good, as if they might rumble to life and repeat the words he’s dreamed of every night since waking up in the back of the wagon:  _ I hereby sentence you, Theseus, son of Perseus, to be not of mortal planes, but of heavenly ones—  _

“Can I help you?”

Theseus startles at the voice, and turns to see a tall, slender woman in priestess’s robes. She raises her eyebrows at him.  _ Can _ she help him? He doesn’t even know why he’s here, really, except that Rekhien and Marin and Phyn all ran off this morning to train or hunt or cause mayhem and the temple seemed the obvious place for him to go. 

And perhaps that if he’s felt strange and untethered since coming back from the dead, there were worse things for him to do than figure out exactly who or what he’s promised this new life to.

“I, um—”  _ I died and was resurrected extremely conditionally by a god and I think I can see in the dark now; can you help with that? _

She tilts her head at him, taking in his armor, and her expression sharpens. “You’re one of the ‘heroes’, aren’t you? I heard there was a human man among them.”

“Yes,” He says quickly. “You, ah— heard what happened with the Marchion, then?”

“I doubt a soul in the city hasn’t.” She has smooth tan skin and dark eyes; her head covering hides her ears, but there’s a trace of elvin refinement in her features. She smirks at him. “Though the retelling I heard didn’t include how handsome you are.”

It takes him a full moment to process the flirtation, and his face and stomach grow hot and prickling.

“I, ah— “ He takes an awkward, directionless step that turns out to be into a short podium, and collides dangerously with the empty, wide-brimmed metal bowl sitting there. He grabs at it, but doesn’t manage to stop it from tipping to the floor where it lands with a thunderous _ , _ ringing crash, magnified spectacularly by the vast stone interior of the temple.

He freezes. The priestess stares. Theseus has the fleeting thought that maybe if he asked, Tyr would rescind his resurrection and kill him.

“I was, uh— hoping to study here,” he blurts, some instinctive attempt to salvage the conversation. He picks up the bowl, which now sports a sizeable dent, and puts it back in its place as gently as possible. “I know very little about the god Tyr and thought it might… behoove me to learn. I’m happy to offer my services or… pay, if that’s appropriate, in exchange.”

He’s breathless with mortification and realizes only now that the priestess looks, mercifully, amused. Her lips curve into a half-smile as she considers him.

“What do they call you, hero of Mirabar?” Her voice is warm.

“Theseus.” He has to catch himself, almost says the wrong name. “Theseus… Vitale.”

She folds her hands before her in a formal stance, long sleeves falling elegantly. “Well, Master Vitale, for a savior of the city with such spectacular  _ grace _ — ” the humor gilding her voice doesn’t escape him, nor does the irony of her word choice— “I’m sure we can arrange something.”  
  
  


**II.**

  
  


Rekhien leans forward, flexes his gloved palms on the railing. Below him, in the training ring, Marin dives beneath the thrust of a staff, parries another with her shortsword and a grunt. He’s never really watched her fight with weapons before, and she’s not terrible.

He cups his hands around his mouth, leans over the rail like a rowdy spectator. “Get ‘em, Marin!”

Her head whips towards him at the sound of his voice. “What’re you doing here?!”

“I’m here to cheer you on!”

The distraction puts her off guard: the soldier Marin’s fighting sweeps her knees, and she goes down in an awkward stumble. Rekhien winces.

Whatever trainer is overseeing the arena shouts some signal, and a handful of hand-to-hand mock fights across the floor break up. Weapons lower and stances relax. Marin’s opponent helps her up, and Rekhien no sooner forms the intent to go meet her than he swings over the railing and drops, sure-footed, the ten or so feet onto the packed dirt. 

Stairs, after all, are only for idiots who need them.

Marin sheathes her sword as he approaches, and a half-smile tugs at her mouth despite herself. Her hair is tied back in a messy braid with the bit of fishing net she normally uses as a headband, but stray pieces stick to her neck and forehead, dampened with sweat. “Aren’t you supposed to be learning how to make potions? Or did you skip today to  _ cheer me on _ ?”

Rekhien makes a noncommittal noise. “The herbalist let me out early and the commissary isn’t serving food yet.”

She rolls her eyes as she moves past him towards the water jug. “That’s more like it.”

“You’re pretty fast down here,” Rekhien says appraisingly. “I bet with some practice you could fight the way I do.”

It’s a generous compliment, but he’s in a good mood. For Rekhien, the stay in Mirabar has sorted itself into an easy routine: he spends the daytime in the herbalist’s workshop, where various bad-smelling vapors billow into his face and the herbalist in question barks at him about his mixing technique. When she finally dismisses him, he winds a long path back to the Hall of All Fires, dipping in and out of the long shadows of the city, to find a Marin fresh out of her own training, and dinner, in that order. 

Phyn and Theseus usually join them at the long tables in the mess hall, although the former has quickly adopted a hunter’s odd schedule, and the latter sometimes says late at the temple doing whatever it is he does at the temple. The evenings typically involve drinking and card games; there’s been a lengthy discussion with Phyn about fletching on arrows, an arm-wrestling contest with Marin that Rekhien won through the power of sheer desperation, and one ill-fated attempt to outdrink Theseus and his considerable constitution.

It’s… nice, actually. None of them are tired and stiff from hours in the wagon, or freezing cold, or grimacing through the pain of bandaged wounds. The older, deeper cuts on Rekhien’s chest and arms that’ve ached dully for months start to actually  _ heal _ , and there’s a real silver-and-glass mirror in his chamber that he uses to make note of the new scars on his skin.

Also, the food is far, far better.

Marin wipes water from her chin with the back of her hand. “I don’t know about that. I’m no fighter.”

Having more energy means having more energy for  _ dumb bullshit. _ Rekhien hasn’t done anything stupid or dangerous in at least forty-eight hours, so when the idea comes to him, he welcomes it with a crooked grin. “How about we test that?”

She gives him a confused half-smile, as if he’s joking. “What do you mean?"

“You and me. A quick spar, just for fun.” Rekhien unsheathes a knife and twirls it deftly in his left hand, points it at her. “No magic, just weapons.”

Marin’s eyes narrow. “You’ll win if I can’t use magic.”

He winks at her. “I’ll go easy on you.”

Marin crosses her arms at him— but Rekhien has convinced her to do so many stupid things these past eight months; he can tell from the twist of her mouth that he’s already won.

“ _ Yes _ magic,” She says resolutely, and pokes a finger into his chest, “But no  _ damage _ magic. So I can teleport and other things that won’t hurt you.” She pauses, and her expression goes smug. “Unless you think that makes the fight too challenging for you.”

Rekhien bites back a smirk. In fact, ‘No damage magic’ means everything his tattoo does is technically on the table, but he’s not about to remind her of it. “Deal.”

She nods. “Rules?”

He snorts. “No rules. What do I look like, Theseus? A little blood never hurt anybody.”

Marin gives a single laugh. “Deal.”

“What deal are we making?” It’s Phyn’s voice— the elf approaches from the nearest entryway, Lulu trotting happily at his heels.

Rekhien greets him with his usual warmth. “Where’d you come from?”   
  
“Marin Messaged me when you, ah, dropped in.” Phyn’s easy smile pulls against the long scar that bisects the left side of his jaw. “I’ve been in the training field outside with Lulu. We’re learning to  _ wait _ .”

Lulu, on command, goes down on her belly, head between her paws, and gazes up at her master, her patience betrayed only by a wildly thrashing tail. He murmurs praise and drops into a crouch to pet her.

“Rekhien and I are gonna try to stab each other,” Marin says brightly.

“Oh, good,” Phyn hums, as nonchalant as if she’d informed him of the weather.

“You wanna referee?” Rekhien asks, and stretches his arms out, still holding the knife. Marin’s warmed up— unless she’s tired herself out, it’s a point in her favor.

“Well,” Phyn scratches Lulu’s chin. “I suppose someone should be present heal you two back from the brink of death.”

Marin objects to that, and Phyn laughs, but Rekhien turns away, preparing. He paces a few steps and toes a little starting mark into the dirt, centers himself on it. The weight of the knife in his grip is comforting, more of an extension of himself than a weapon, and it feels good to weild it after a tenday of pestles and vials.

The stirrings of magic prick at his palm as if in anticipation. But that’s a last resort.

“You ready?” Marin calls to him, brandishing the shortsword. The rest of the soldiers are still on break— a few, including Marin’s previous partner, appear to be watching them with distant interest.

Rekhien adjusts his stance and spreads his hands theatrically. “At Lord Oakenheel’s call.”

Phyn looks caught off guard. “Oh? What am I mean to call?”

One of the women watching them cups a hand around her mouth and yells, _ “Fight!”  _

Instantly, Rekhien’s instincts kick in, and the world narrows to the two of them: Marin’s mirrored position and the gentle shifting of her footwork. Her yellow eyes locked on his. Rekhien keeps his answering steps measured as they circle each other. Marin is impulsive; she’ll almost certainly do something reckless if he can wait it out.

She proves him right. A heartbeat later she lunges at him, leaving her right side open. Rekhien is quick as a viper to dodge the strike and lash out with his own weapon— and with a yelp of spellwork, Marin vanishes from the blade’s path. 

She reappears fifteen feet away, clearly flustered, her tail thrashing around her knees. Rekhien’s annoyance turns to a preemptive thrill of victory: one spell down. No need to beat her quickly; outlasting enough of her magic to make her nervous would be enough.

A few murmurs ripple through the assembly of soldiers, and one leans over to Phyn. Rekhien thinks he hears the clink of coins.

Marin is more cautious with her next blow, and Rekhien deflects, rather than dodges. He can’t parry the full weight of the sword with just a dagger. The mismatch in weapons means Marin has the reach advantage, but it weighs her down, and he’s already faster than her. Something smolders in her gaze as Rekhien evades another jab and swings at her. She burns another spell to avoid it, but this time she doesn’t put distance between them— she manifests before him, close enough to breathe on, and her body contorts— 

By some miracle of his reflexes, Rekhien reaches down and catches her knee before she manages to violently lodge it between his legs. 

The crowd jeers, and Marin grimaces in frustration as she struggles to balance with him holding her in place. Fighting the giddy urge to laugh, Rekhien clicks his tongue chidingly at her. “They teach you to fight dirty in Neverwinter, huh.”

If she wants to brawl like the street kids they are, he won’t deny her.

Before she can muster a response, he tightens his grip on her knee and  _ shoves _ . Marin goes tumbling back and lands hard on her side, and any guilt it inspires is swallowed by scattered cheers from their audience. He advances on her, quick and light, knife at the ready. It feels right, it feels like how he should be, that anticipation thrumming through him like its own kind of spell.

But Rekhien lets the sensation distract him. Marin throws an arm up and hisses something arcane, and suddenly a blast of wind whips through the air and slams into him, smelling of salt and stinging his eyes. The effect lasts only an instant, but Rekhien reels back, nearly knocked over but for a quick scramble for footing.

When he regains his balance, Marin is gone. He swears, and turns only just in time to register her stab at him from behind. The blade of the sword flashes in the sun and he only barely ducks out of its way, turning the movement into a dive out of her reach. 

Rekhien clenches his jaw as he rights himself. She’s getting smarter about combining her spells. It’s time to end this before she thinks of anything else clever.

Marin circles him again, her expression fixed in a scowl. Most of the soldiers look on, now, giving them a wide berth. Someone shouts a vague encouragement, and Marin’s eyes flicker towards the disruption— so Rekhien strikes.

She’s quick, this time, and parries the blow. He leverages it into another swipe, and Marin mutters something low under her breath as she blocks it.

For a moment, Rekhien’s not sure what spell she cast. And then something latches onto his head and  _ yanks _ .

A grunt tears from his chest as he stumbles backwards with the force of it, pain razing down his scalp from— gods  _ damn _ it— Marin’s phantom hand clenched in his hair. The moment he does, it releases him, only for the force to shove at his ankle just enough that he goes down on his back, the force of it radiating through his lungs as the breath is knocked from him.

Maybe later he’ll think this is funny, but for a blazing moment of air deprivation, the stupidity of it renders him faintly furious.

Marin advances on him lazily, like a cat with its prey, breathing hard but clearly pleased with herself. Fine. Let her think she’s won.

“The knee to the balls was low, but hair-pulling?” Rekhien asks, and emphasises the wheezing quality of his breathless voice. “ _ Really _ ?”

A flash of her too-sharp teeth as she crouches to his level. “They teach us to fight dirty in Neverwinter.”

Rekhien props himself up and shifts his hands behind his back, disguising the movement as merely a pained adjustment. “You know what they teach us in Waterdeep?”

“What’s that?”

He smiles up at her radiantly. “Always have a trick up your sleeve.”

He whips off the glove and raises his left hand between them, and a flash of magic circles his tattoo as magic hums through Rekhien’s bones. The light is yellow— paralysis.

Murmurs of confusion and a few excited shouts break out across the arena floor, and for a moment, he’s afraid it hasn’t worked: Marin’s eyes go wide and she grips the shortsword. But then her expression falls from surprised to slack, and she goes perfectly, magically still. 

Rekhien slowly lowers his hand, allows himself a huff of satisfaction. He takes his time getting up and crouching to match her stance before adjusting his hold on the knife and raising it to her throat, all while her eyes remain fixed on where he was.

He smiles. “I think I wi—”

Her eyes snap to his, and his stomach drops. A familiar chant falls from her lips and Marin disappears; before he can process what’s happened, the weight of a body slams into him from behind. They tumble to the ground and she lands on top, all but pinning him. The knife scatters from his grip. Rekhien finds himself flat on his back and staring up into a pair of furious, and very  _ un _ -paralyzed, yellow eyes.

He gapes at her. “Did you—? Were you  _ pretending _ to be—” 

“You tried to use your orb powers on me?!” She snarls, and whacks his shoulder with the flat of her palm, the shortsword discarded. “You absolute ass, you actually thought that would  _ work— _ ?”

“It’s—  _ ow _ — it’s non-damage magic!” He protests weakly. “And it could have!”

She grabs the knife—  _ his _ knife— from the dirt and holds it to his throat. Not with enough pressure to draw blood, but enough for the cold, sharp edge to catch against his skin. “You were saying?”

He gives a labored exhale and lets his head tip back against the ground. This is  _ massively unfair.  _ “You win?”

For a beat, she just glares at him. And then her face breaks into a grin, beaming through the smudge of dirt on her cheek. “That was fun!” she chirps, clambering off him and dropping the knife. “We should do it again sometime.”

“We are never, ever doing that again,” Rekhien responds dully, but Marin is already turned away, heading towards the nearest archway; her former sparring partner claps her on the back with a laugh.

Phyn looms into Rekhien’s vision, expression sympathetic, and extends a hand. Lulu nudges Rekhien’s cheek with a wet nose as he accepts the help, grimacing through the forming bruises. “She cheated, right?”

“You’re both very unsportsmanlike,” Phyn says cheerfully.

One of the soldiers elbows Phyn and tosses him a few silver. The man glances at Rekhien and snorts, and offense blooms in Rekhien’s stomach.

“You bet on  _ Marin _ ?” Rekhien groans, as Phyn pockets the silver. “This is betrayal.”

“Don’t worry,” Phyn says arily. “I have other bets on you two.”

Rekhien’s suspicious instincts prick up. “What bets.” 

Phyn turns to follow Marin out and whistles for Lulu. When the wolf bounds past, Rekhien trails after. “Phyn.  _ What bets, Phyn _ .”

**III.**

  
  


Phyn digs the heels of his boots into the thick moss underfoot and surveys the foliage of the Lurkwood. 

He left Mirabar a few days after Marin and Rekhien’s spar in the arena. They promised him they would keep Theseus out of trouble, and, later, Theseus promised he’d keep  _ them _ out of trouble, so Phyn has middling confidence that all three of them will be alive when he gets back. 

The ambient sounds of the forest envelop him: leaves rustle far above his head and the distant, layered sounds of scurrying animals and chirping birds mingle with Lulu’s soft pant at his side. The trees loom tall, an amber late-afternoon light filtering in between the branches, carrying the faintest swirl of dust— or maybe magic.

This deep in, the wood thrums with it, as rich as it is in the Weathercote, though wilder, less familiar. The forest’s life force ebbs invisibly around him like a tide beneath the glassy surface of a river, and Phyn has tried to follow it, let it carry him to the Golden Stag. There’s not much else to go on. The hunters he asked at the lodge each gave a different suggestion for luring it out, the stuff of wives’ tales: laying out blessed ferns for it to rest on, saying its true name into a hole dug at midnight and sleeping beside it, leaving a sunset offering at some sacred pond.

Phyn has never needed rituals so arcane to catch anything. But he’s never hunted anything like the stag before, either. After ten days of this, he’s almost ready to try— he can’t spend much longer here before heading back.

Especially not with the bite on his forearm still aching beneath its bindings. 

Lulu gives the softest whimper, sensing something the moment before he does— a whisper in the brush, the dark shadow of something solid. Phyn stills, a hunter’s honed reaction, and raises his bow, nocks an arrow, noiselessly. 

He crouches, the moss hiding the sounds of his movement as he takes cover in the low ferns and bushes. Lulu knows to be silent and still, her ears pointed in alert and her black eyes intent.

He’s not entirely sure why he wants the stag, especially since he’s not at all sure he wants to kill it. And Solonor knows he has better things to be doing than hunting a mythical spirit. But the forest creature in him wants to know, and the hunter in him wants to hunt, and he’s not in the practice of denying either of them.

The shape moves, barely a dozen paces away, and every muscle in his body tenses, the bowstring taut. Thin legs emerge from the leaves, and for a moment, the light hits them blindingly gold, and his heart stops—

And then the creature emerges fully, a plain brown doe illuminated by sunlight. Phyn gives a long exhale as disappointment and relief war in his system. He doesn’t need any more deer pelts. Lulu, sensing his reaction, gives a disappointed whine, and the doe freezes in terror, staring at them. Phyn lowers the bow. 

“You’re not who I’m looking for,” he says to it conversationally. The thing turns and bolts, darting between the branches until it’s out of sight.

Phyn sighs and scrubs a hand through the loose half of his hair. It’s getting late; they’ll have to make camp soon. The hunters at the lodge were even quicker to dispense warnings about the Lurkwood’s deadliness at night than to opine about the stag. Lulu trailing behind, he saunters back down the ridge they came from, speckled with tall blue sapwoods and thick with starleaf vine. The Lurkwood is beautiful, if unruly— his sure footing has saved him from more than one stumble into a thornbush or fall into a ravine. 

As the light grows longer and more mottled with shadow, he returns them to the edge of a small, placid lake they’d passed an hour ago. The water is unnaturally still, nearly glasslike, and almost certainly harboring at least one strange creature; earlier he’d had to keep Lulu from drinking from it. Phyn lowers his pack and the bundle of caught rabbit carcasses to the bank gently. As long as whatever’s in the water stays in the water, hopefully its proximity will keep other beasts away, and the flat, sandy dirt is a decent place to sleep.

He begins to mark out an area for a small cooking fire, and absently recites a prayer to Solonor as he lays out materials. Nothing dramatic, just an old ritual recitation in elvish, one he’s known for as long as he can remember—  _ grant us the growth of the sapling and the strength of the wood—  _

Phyn has never been terribly religious, but then he’s never been away from home for so long, either. He’s begun to find that a prayer here and there has the same effect as redoing his hair braids: a moment of belonging, a gossamer thread strung between him and  _ home _ .

Absorbed in his task, he doesn’t look up the first time Lulu lets out a low whine. But her alarm spikes through the bond they share at the same moment that in the peripherals of his vision he realizes that  _ the water is moving _ . He whirls towards the lake, eyes to the surface, his hand going for his sword on instinct.

It freezes on the hilt. In the dark water, the ripples warp an indistinct reflection— a shock of yellow, the curve of a flank. Heart pounding, Phyn raises his gaze up, and up—

On the far side of the lake, a stag has stepped into the shallowest part of the water, enormous and glowing a bright, arcane gold.

It lowers its head to drink, and even at a distance, it’s clear how controlled its every movement is, the power and grace that radiates through its whole being. Phyn isn’t breathing. The forest seems to warp around the creature, brighter and yet less distinct, as if the Stag both draws from and feeds it— an embodiment and a servant, both.

And then it raises its head and looks directly at Phyn.

The world tunnels to the gaze between them, and he doesn’t think he could look away if he wanted to. The Stag’s eyes are dark as midnight pools, its massive antlers branching to the sky like tree limbs. Everything in the forest seems to close in, the sensations suddenly within him— he feels the quick, hairy spread of the moss, the open and close of flowers, the slow twin reaches of roots and branches, twining, grasping, stretching. Everything in cycles that spin faster and faster until Phyn loses himself in it, no longer a single creature with a single mind but something of the forest’s life force, the only boundaries those between life and death, bloom and rot.

The stag looks away, and Phyn is released as if from a spell. He slumps to the ground, weak in his own body, and Lulu rushes to be beside him, yips with concern.

Phyn’s lungs are filled with the scent of dirt and fresh growth. Clean air. Old trees.  _ Forest _ . Phantom sensations of the woods echo in his body, and in that moment he misses the Weathercote like a physical ache, a pang that resonates in the throb of his bitten arm.

The stag looks back at Phyn, but there is no tunneling sensation this time, only an ancient creature’s endless gaze. Its soft golden glow seems brighter now, the forest growing dim as the sky purples above them. Breathless, Phyn nods once at it, because it seems like the right thing to do.

It inclines its head in return.

Something rustles in the brush beside Phyn, and he’s distracted by it for just an instant— and when he looks back across the lake, the stag is gone. Only fading ripples in the water betray that it was really there.

Lulu makes an agitated noise and paws at him, the sensation of canine  _ worry _ coming through the bond. He scratches at her neck fur reassuringly. “What was that, girl?” He murmurs, and Lulu licks his chin happily at the attention. “Was it trying to tell me something, do you think?”

Lulu barks once, and Phyn nods like she’s said something meaningful. “Yes, I think so too.”

As the want for home subsides— becomes something he can ignore again, rather— he finds something else, a second longing hidden beneath the first.

“Do you miss Rekhien and Marin and Theseus?” He asks Lulu, ruffling her thick white fur. “I miss them.”

Lulu wiggles and barks at the names as if she actually recognizes them— and maybe she does. 

“Okay,” he concedes, and a smile tugs at his mouth. “Okay. We’ll go back tomorrow.”

**IV.**

  
  


Marin stares at the faded letterforms, eyes aching, and wills them to tell her something, anything else.

_ … often shrouded in a dense fog and violent storm…  _

_ … ships unwilling to sail closer to the islands... _

_ … Little else is known or confirmed…  _

_ … these reports are impossible to substantiate…  _

_ … No recorded visitors have returned. _

She’s been holed up in the stifling silence of the library for days now, and searched everything she can think of— nautical records, world geographies, histories of magic, textbooks and maps and biographies. But even tomes that lovingly detail the other northern islands spend only a spare sentence or two on the Purple Rocks, and mostly echo the same vaguely-sketched ideas: fog, cold, mysteriousness.

One of the newer reports mentions an unnatural, constant storm plaguing the islands dating from at least ten years ago, the tempest framed as impassable final obstacle in an already arduous journey. It’s the only useful piece of information that’s presented itself. But if it’s true, why wouldn’t Lymarium have mentioned it? 

Marin lets out an exhausted exhale and shoves the compendium in front of her away. There’s so much more she should have asked her, so much more that isn’t in these books.

The sudden appearance of Rekhien, arms full of scrolls, ducking out from between the shelves, startles her. “There you are.” He glances over his shoulder. “I’ve been looking for you; I think the curator thinks I’m going to steal something. What year were you shipwrecked?”

“What year was—” Marin blinks in dull surprise. “Why?”

He has a manic look about him as he deposits various papers across the table and starts sorting through them. “Was it fourteen-seventy? Fifteen years ago?”

The pit of Marin’s stomach falls out. “Yes. Why?”

He opens his mouth, but a hissed “ _ SHHHH” _ cuts him off. The curator, a craggy old dragonborn woman with half-moon glasses, glares out at them from a gap in the books in the shelf to Marin’s left. Marin mouthes a “ _ Sorry _ ,” at her as Rekhien scowls.

The woman retreats, and Marin whispers, now: “What is all this?”

“Stuff I found in Chuz’s quarters.” Rekhien is wearing some of the new clothes she helped him pick out— he resisted adding any color to his wardrobe, but she did talk him into the tunic he’s wearing now, which is grey rather than black. He produces a water-stained journal, several pages dogeared, from his materials and holds it out. “Read these.”  
  


_ Journal Entry:  
_ _ 30th day of Ches in the year 1470  
  
_

The handwriting is cramped, scawled in black ink; Marin skims the more legible parts of the entry.  
  


_ … We were given scarce information on the mission, not even the name of the island, only that there is a powerful item held by these zealot savages…   
  
_

_ … Infiltrate, kill, retrieve. Simple enough. _

  
There’s something unsettling about it, but Marin can’t place the feeling. “What is this?”

Rekhien rubs at the tattoo on his palm, hands ungloved. He nods to the journal. “Read the next one.”

_  
… We fell upon the city as the sun rose, and slaughtered many before they woke, but soon our presence became known. Many of these devils were adept magic users, but being adept at magic and being adept in war are different skills. We easily cut through and advanced toward what we perceived to be the main citadel near the eastern side of the island…  _

_ … Large rain droplets fell upon us and mixed with the blood on the ground, giving the stone a deep purplish hue…  _

  
Terrible understanding rises in Marin like a black tide. It couldn’t be. All the searching she’s done— 

_  
… Upon reaching the top, I saw a ship sailing away, through the storm, from a small alcove hidden in the base…  _

_ … I suspect those who fled on the ship managed to carry the item with them. We sailed quickly east to try to catch them, but could not track the ship on the sea. We have put the spies to work monitoring every major port between here and Luskan…  _

_ … As you said, no survivors…  _

_ … We consider this mission a failure. _

_ \- Commander Chuz,  _ _ “Cronos” _

  
“Purple stone. Purple Rocks,” Marin murmurs. It’s fortunate she’s sitting, because it’s suddenly hard to breathe, like a stone weighs on her chest. “You think I was on that ship?”

Rekhien splays his hands, eyes wide and serious. “I don’t know. Lymarium didn’t say anything about a massacre. And she didn’t seem like a  _ zealot _ to me. But if the timeline’s right...”

And it is exactly right, down to the month the Lock found her. Something pricks at her memory, and she shoves aside Rekhien’s scrolls, searching for one of the books splayed out around her. 

“I’ve been researching the Purple Rocks.” She flips a few frantic pages to the entry she’s looking for. Her hands tremble. “There’s almost nothing except that it’s surrounded by an enormous storm, and it’s an  _ ecclesiocracy _ .” 

Rekhien’s expression goes blank looking at the text, and Marin hastily explains the word. “Meaning they’re governed by religious leadership.” 

_ Zealots _ .

Comprehension dawns on his face. “Shit.“

“SHHHHH.” The librarian glares at them from behind a book cart as she pushes it slowly across the aisle, gnarled claws wrapped around the handle. Rekhien makes an apologetic gesture at her, but Marin can’t bring herself to do anything but stare at the page.

She remembers the burn of the general’s gaze on her as Theseus lay dying, the violence in his expression. He must have recognized the blue skin— was he thinking of how he slaughtered her race? Was he wondering how she got away? They were so close to someone who  _ knew _ , someone who was  _ responsible _ . If things had gone differently, if Theseus hadn’t obliterated him—

Her throat is thick when she speaks. “Chuz died too quickly.”

Rekhien picks the journal back up and rifles through the pages. “You don’t know the half of it; there’s some crazy shit in here. I’m pretty sure Theseus killed his son.”

Marin can’t find it in her to respond to that. If it’s all true, if the ship is  _ her _ ship, and gods, it must be—

“Any ideas on the thing him and his goons were looking for?” Rekhien turns the journal upside down briefly, as if that might shake more insights out of it. “You didn’t get plucked out of the ocean wearing a magical necklace or anything?”

“If it was on the ship, it must have sank with it.” Her voice sounds faraway, even to herself.

Rekhien stills, a page halfway turned. “You okay?”

Marin feels, briefly, ridiculous. Can she mourn something she doesn’t remember having? Something she didn’t even think to want until finding out it was taken from her? She hadn’t  _ minded _ being the only blue tiefling. And the Lock, for all Hafren’s stoicism, loved her— she had never wanted for a family. 

But meeting Lymrith had made her hope for something she had no name for. Getting and losing it in the same moment is a horror so vast and so sudden she’s afraid to move, to think too hard about it, like it’s a wound so shocking her body hasn’t registered the pain yet.

Her vision blurs, and it takes her a moment longer than it should to realize it’s because she’s crying. “I don’t know.”

Rekhien looses a long breath, and Marin senses more than sees him crouch beside her, feels the weight of his gaze before she meets it.

“If you— if you want to go to the Purple Rocks,” he offers, gently, “We’re with you. You know that, right?”

It makes her smile, even though the action almost hurts. Friendship hadn’t come easily to Rekhien, and loyalty even less so. But he tries at it now, for her, and whatever else she has lost, she has him. She has all of them.

Marin sniffs pathetically, her voice wavering with tears. “We’re gonna have to get that boat, then.”

The solid sound of a book being placed down with extreme prejudice interrupts them, and Marin turns in her chair to see the Dragonborn librarian standing directly behind them. Her rheumy eyes blaze across the tops of her spectacles at them as she purses her wrinkled, scaly lips and gives a pronounced “ _ SHHHHHHHHH _ .”

Rekhien snaps, springing to his full height. “ _ You _ shush! We’re having an important conversation here!”

They are summarily kicked out of the library. 

**V.**

  
  


For some reason, when the taverns close, it’s always Theseus’s room the party drunkenly ends up in, no matter how hard he protests that he’s too old for this.

Truthfully, though, he doesn’t mind it.

From his seat on the settee in the corner of the room, he watches Phyn progress sideways up the wall in his magic boots, his steps wobbly with alcohol. Lulu grows steadily more agitated beneath him, confused at her master’s apparent levitation.

“Marin,” Rekhien says, and his tone is one of wonderment. “This book is  _ terrible _ .”

Marin scowls at him from where she sits cross-legged on the carpet, drunkenly making magical sparks dance between her fingers. “It is not!”

Rekhien lies draped over the corner of Theseus’s bed, head nearly upside-down as he pages through one of her romance novels. “I mean really, really bad. ‘Massive throbbing—”

Marin bares her teeth. “Do NOT finish that sentence—” 

“— _ Rod of love?? _ ”

She makes a fervent dive to grab the book from his hands, her tail thrashing. “I will Fireball you right here, Rekhien, I don’t care if I incinerate the curtains—” 

Rekhien yelps and rolls out of her reach, and Phyn finds footing on the ceiling, his long hair reaching for the ground. “Can I read it next?” He asks with complete sincerity, as Lulu whimpers and paws at the air.

The room isn’t really large enough for four people and a large wolf, even if most of the people and wolves are currently on the floor, and through the fading buzz of too much ale, a warm sense of chaos envelops Theseus. This is what his death bought, he thinks serenely, as Rekhien and Marin grapple over a smut book on the carpet. 

He would do it again.

Marin renews her efforts. “I’m not sharing anymore if you guys are just going to make fun of it—” 

Rekhien, laughing, deftly evades her grasp. “Hey! I’m still reading!”

“It’s a  _ good story _ ,” Marin insists, although she isn’t truly angry, a determined grin on her face as she attempts to grab at the book, “About trauma! And belonging! And people who love each other!”

“Quite graphically, from the sound of it,” Phyn observes, his face turning red from the inverted blood flow.

Rekhien chokes on a howl of laughter, and Marin groans. “Theseus, help me.”

He stirs from observation. “Help you what?”

“I don’t know. Control these idiots?”

“What’s Theseus gonna do? All he does smite things,” Rekhien snickers, prone on the floor and still in the throes of amusement.

Theseus thinks of everything he’s learned in the temple, everything he hasn’t shared yet. He’d been waiting for  _ the right moment _ , but really, he never has been good with timing.

“Well,” he says calmly, “I can also fly now.”

All struggle immediately halts, everyone falling deathly still to stare at him. Even Lulu goes quiet.

And then all three of his ridiculous friends start yelling at him simultaneously, and Theseus grins.

.


End file.
